Student's Death Still A Puzzle

She came to Florida with her parents' blessing to try a new college, to move in with one of her girlfriends from her childhood in New York, to open a door to her future.

Amie Hanes was 19, just a month into the rest of her life when she died.

Bright-eyed and curious, Amie Hanes was bubbling with teen-age optimism and the rush that comes with living away from home for the first time.

But in the dawn of Sept. 22, 1997, Amie Hanes' body was found under a bush in the overflow parking lot of a Fort Lauderdale steakhouse.

No clues. No witnesses.

Even how she died is a mystery.

"We've never had a case like this before, where you didn't have a cause of death," said Detective Mike Walley, a 20-year veteran of the Fort Lauderdale Homicide Department. For two years, he has been investigating Amie Hanes' death.

She was last seen on Sept. 19, 1997, when she left to go play pool with friends she met through her roommate.

Two of those young men have been questioned by police, but were never named as suspects.

Police were told Amie Hanes was dropped off at her apartment about 1:30 a.m. Sept. 20.

A small street map on the wall of the Fort Lauderdale police homicide division illustrates what police know about Amie Hanes' case. Pushpins denote where she lived, where she was found, where police found the scattered contents of her purse.

That purse is one of the few clues Walley has that someone knows about her death.

The contents were scattered through a Boca Raton neighborhood, like someone had hung it out of a car and let what was inside fly out.

An autopsy offered no clues. There were no wounds, no signs of trauma. No trace of drugs or alcohol in her body.

"Nineteen-year-old females don't die for no reason," Walley said.

Now, on the anniversary of her death, Carl Hanes is hoping money can help draw out information about how his daughter died.

He and his wife, Connie, are offering $25,000 for someone to come forward with a tip on her death.

"She would have been 21 this year," Carl Hanes said from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he is a deputy to the president.

She grew up in Long Island, the youngest of four children. She went to SUNY at Stony Brook for her freshman year of college, but transferred to Florida Atlantic University after a tenth of a percentage point kept her out of an honors program.

"I think if we could get the case solved, get us some closure, it would not only help the family but also Amie's friends," Carl Hanes said. "It would take that scary uncertainty, that bothersome issue out of the thinking process."

The Hanes family has been able to turn its suffering into something good.

This year, the family helped plan the Amie R. Hanes Memorial Tennis Tournament, to benefit a scholarship in her memory. That money will go each year to two SUNY at Stony Brook students, Carl Hanes said.

Last year, the family and nine of Amie Hanes' closest friends gathered for a beach barbecue, to swap stories about the young woman who touched their lives.

"It was a fun night, to hear them telling stories that we had never heard -- when we had been out and away at night, what went on. How one of Mom's figurines was broken and how they worked like crazy to glue it back together," Carl Hanes said.

He clings to so many memories of his daughter, like the week they spent together setting up her apartment.

"We had a great time. It was probably the most enjoyable time we've ever had together, because it was just the two of us," he said.

It was the last time he saw her alive.

"She was such a bubbly, fun kid to be around. But the good thing is we have a lot of great memories," he said. "That's what keeps us going."

Anyone with information about the case should call Fort Lauderdale Homicide Department Detective Mike Walley at 954-761-5541 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.

Kathy Bushouse can be reached at kbushouse@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4511.